Skyroot Aerospace plans to ship its next Vikram-1 rocket to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota by the end of November, with the Hyderabad-based company targeting fully commercial launches from its third mission.
Co-founder Naga Bharath Daka told the Times of India that the second test mission is expected by December or early January. “By the end of the calendar year, in Dec or early Jan, we hope to launch our second test mission. From our third mission, we will go fully commercial,” he said.
The planned shipment will move the rocket from Skyroot’s Hyderabad manufacturing operations to ISRO’s launch facility in Sriharikota. The company had already sent the first-stage hardware of the next Vikram-1 towards the spaceport in late August, according to a post by co-founder Pawan Kumar Chandana.
The development follows Skyroot’s first orbital mission in July, when its Vikram-1 became the first privately developed Indian orbital-class launch vehicle to reach low Earth orbit and place a satellite in space. Mission Aagaman lifted off from Sriharikota and deployed its payloads in a 450-km orbit.
That mission also tested technologies developed by the company, including carbon-composite structures, solid propulsion stages and 3D-printed engines. The second test flight is intended to build on that launch as Skyroot moves towards a commercial operating model.
Skyroot began work on the second test-flight rocket before its maiden orbital mission was launched. While the first Vikram-1 was manufactured and shipped from MaxQ, the company’s headquarters near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad, the next rocket is being built at its 2 lakh sq-ft Infinity Campus.
The campus was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November last year and has been designed to support a higher production rate. Skyroot has said the facility could eventually enable a launch cadence of one rocket a month, although the company’s immediate milestone is to complete shipment of the second rocket and conduct its next test mission.
The proposed commercial transition places Hyderabad’s private aerospace manufacturing base alongside Sriharikota’s established launch infrastructure. For Skyroot, the next two missions will determine the pace at which its in-house rocket production can move from demonstration flights to regular commercial services. The company’s stated next steps are to ship the rocket by November-end and target the second test launch in December or early January.
